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The Belgian plant at the center of the EU’s fight with AstraZeneca over coronavirus vaccine shortages said Wednesday it produced all the doses it was obliged to under its contract with the drugmaker.
AstraZeneca pointed to filtration problems at the factory in Seneffe as part of its justification for a nearly 75 million dose cut to the EU’s vaccine deliveries for the first quarter of 2020. Belgian authorities inspected the plant in January at the request of the European Commission.
“We have complied with all the contractual requirements we have with AstraZeneca,” Cedric Volanti, EU vice president for Thermo Fisher, which owns the plant, told a press conference Wednesday attended by Reuters.
AstraZeneca subcontracted the plant — previously owned by Novasep — to produce the drug substance of its vaccine. Volanti would not say how many doses the plant was contracted to provide. He said the plant sends its drug substance to an Italian company to be put into vials and packaged for distribution.
AstraZeneca declined to comment on Thermo Fisher’s remarks, according to Reuters. After announcing the shortfall last month, AstraZeneca said it will supply 40 million vaccine doses out of the at least 100 million doses promised.
The EU’s Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton went to the plant Wednesday to examine what kind of manufacturing hurdles the company had, as part of his work to ramp up coronavirus vaccine manufacturing.
“The manufacture of vaccines in such a short period of time and for such volumes is unprecedented in Europe and beyond in the world,” Breton said in a statement.
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